'Conflict of interest' in Columbus school contracts

Thursday

Dec 20, 2012 at 12:01 AMDec 20, 2012 at 10:45 AM

Given the list of academic, financial and legal woes facing Columbus City Schools, few would question the district's decision to seek training in leadership and management. What is raising eyebrows, however, is the company selected to provide that training: It's headed by the husband of a member of the district's board.

Given the list of academic, financial and legal woes facing Columbus City Schools, few would question the district’s decision to seek training in leadership and management.

What is raising eyebrows, however, is the company selected to provide that training: It’s headed by the husband of a member of the district’s board.

An analysis of district purchase orders shows that the Columbus-based Visionary Leaders Institute, founded by former Columbus City Council legislative aide Ako Kambon, has received at least three non-bid service contracts — together worth nearly $12,000 — since Hanifah Kambon won a seat on the school board in November 2009.

In April 2010, records show, Visionary Leaders received $5,000 to conduct a “ workshop/presentation” at Columbus’ Oakmont Elementary School.

In November of that year, the district approved paying the company $6,000 to lead three professional-development workshops at Marion-Franklin High School, where the school-board member formerly taught.

In May 2011, the firm got $750 to help with professional development at Buckeye Middle School.

One veteran government watchdog said the contracts raise serious red flags.

“It’s a conflict of interest,” said Catherine Turcer, director of Common Cause Ohio’s voter-protection program and former director of Ohio Citizen Action’s Money in Politics Project.

“It’s a big deal because we don’t want those people who make public policy to be financially benefiting — or put in a position where they could financially benefit.”

The section of the Ohio Revised Code that deals with school boards’ “conveyances and contracts” states that “no member of the board shall have, directly or indirectly, any pecuniary interest in any contract of the board or be employed in any manner for compensation by the board of which the person is a member.”

Turcer said Visionary Leaders should refund every dollar it has received from Columbus City Schools since Mrs. Kambon took office.Mrs. Kambon, who serves on the board’s Audit and Accountability Committee, said the district’s relationship with her husband’s firm never presented a conflict.

“The company did nothing illegal, even with me sitting on the board,” she told WBNS-TV (Channel 10), which analyzed five years’ worth of district purchase orders.

The board member, who taught in Columbus schools for 30 years before retiring in 2007, said her husband runs Visionary Leaders without her involvement.

What’s more, she said, she never has — and never would — cast a vote that put money in her husband’s pocket.

Because the payments to Visionary Leaders were authorized at the building level, they never came before the school board — even though district policy appears to require board approval of any contract worth $5,000 or more.

Mr. and Mrs. Kambon both said Visionary Leaders no longer does any business with Columbus City Schools — though each offered a slightly different explanation.

Mr. Kambon, 61, said his firm severed its ties with the district after a school administrator complained about a possible conflict. He said he wanted to err on the side of caution and avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Mrs. Kambon said she decided independently to seek the advice of the district’s Office of Legal Services in May 2010.

In a formal response, the district’s associate counsel cited the pertinent state law. She even enclosed a copy of the statute.

“If a board member has a pecuniary interest, the contract is void, even though the board member does not participate in or refrains from voting on the contract,” the lawyer wrote.

At that point, Mrs. Kambon said, she asked her husband not to have any further business dealings with the district. “Once I said that to my husband, I expected him to respect my request — along with the response from the school-district legal department.”

Apparently, though, that didn’t happen.

The purchase orders suggest that two of Visionary Leaders’ three district contracts weren’t processed until six months and 12 months, respectively, after Mrs. Kambon received the district’s legal opinion and asked her husband to cut his ties to Columbus City Schools.

School-board President Carol Perkins said Mrs. Kambon had told her that her husband’s company had done work for the district in the past. Perkins said she had no idea, however, that the firm had gotten district contracts during Mrs. Kambon’s tenure on the board.

paul.aker@10tv.com

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